A Higgs mechanism for gravity is presented, where four scalars with global Lorentz symmetry are employed. We show that in the broken symmetry phase a graviton absorbs all scalars and become massive spin 2 particle with five degrees of freedom. The resulting theory is unitary and free of ghosts.
The Higgs mechanism at the graviton level formulated as a Vainshtein mechanism in time domains implies that the extra-degrees of freedom become relevant depending on the direction of time (frame of reference) with respect to the preferred time direction (preferred frame) defined by the Stückelberg function $T_0(r,t)$ which contains the information of the extra-degrees of freedom of the theory. In this manuscript, I make the general definition of the Higgs mechanism by analyzing the gauge symmetries of the action and the general form of the vacuum solutions for the graviton field. In general, t…
We consider the warped AdS(6)xS^4/Z_n backgrounds dual to certain 5d quiver gauge theories. By studying dual giant gravitons in the AdS(6) geometry we are able to partially probe the Higgs branch of these theories. We show how the quantization of the phase space of such dual giants coincides with the counting of holomorphic functions on C^2/Z_n, which is the geometric part of the Higgs branch for these theories.
We construct two kinds of model exhibiting Higgs mechanism for gravitons in potentials of scalar fields. One class of the model is based on a potential which is a generic function of the induced internal metric $H^{AB}$, and the other involves a potential which is a generic function of the usual metric tensor $g_{μν}$ and the induced curved metric $Y_{μν}$. In the both models, we derive conditions on the scalar potential in such a way that gravitons acquire mass in a flat Minkowski space-time without non-unitary propagating modes in the process of spontaneous symmetry breaking of diffeomorphis…
In gravitational Higgs mechanism graviton components acquire mass in the process of spontaneous breaking of diffeomorphisms (via scalar vacuum expectation values). Recently, gravitational Higgs mechanism was discussed in the context of obtaining massive gravity directly in four dimensions. We discuss a setup, with all diffeomorphisms spontaneously broken by scalars, where gravitational Higgs mechanism results in massive gravity in Minkowski space with no non-unitary propagating modes. This is achieved by including higher derivative terms in the scalar sector. Decoupling the non-unitary mode (t…
We study a two-loop finiteness of an effective potential for a Higgs boson that is the fifth component of a gauge field in an $U(1)$ gauge theory coupled to quantum gravity on the five-dimensional space-time $M^4\times S^1$. There are two types of diagrams including quantum gravitational corrections. We find that only one type of diagram contributes to the effective potential for the Higgs boson in fact and its magnitude is finite.
In the search for extra dimension through dilepton events in 7-TeV proton-proton collision, the ATLAS detector at LHC has set stringent lower bound on the mass of the Randall-Sundrum (RS) lightest graviton Kaluza-Klein (KK) mode. Considering that the Randall-Sundrum model undertakes to resolve the well-known gauge hierarchy/fine tuning problem to restrict the Higgs mass within the estimated $\sim 126$ GeV against large radiative correction upto the cut-off of the model, we explore the allowed parameter space within which the RS model can be trusted. We show that the consistency of the model wi…
In this review, we summarize recent findings that show how standard 4-d Einstein gravity coupled to a conformal field theory can become massive in Anti de Sitter Space. Key ingredients in this phenomenon are non-standard ``transparent'' boundary condition given to the CFT fields and the fact that AdS space is not globally hyperbolic, due to the presence of a time-like boundary.
The holographic approach to double diffractive Higgs production is presented for the AdS graviton/Pomeron. The goal is to provide a predictive phenomenology for the strong coupling expansion of QCD. This is the first step to set up the framework for the double diffractive Higgs production in anticipation of experimental observations at the LHC. Comparisons are made with the weak coupling approach based on the BFKL Pomeron models and soft Regge parameterizations.
In the holographic picture, the Brout-Englert-Higgs (BEH) mechanism in d-dimensional Yang-Mills theories is conjectured to provide a Higgs-like mechanism for gravity in d+1 dimensions, resulting in massive (or massless) gravitons in IR (or UV) completions. Accordingly, one could imagine dual (magnetic-type) fields of massive gravitons in the IR (low-energy) limit that are coupled to the curl of their own energy-momentum, as well as to the rotation of matter fields on large scales. This hypothesis, which might solve cosmological issues currently ascribed to dark matter and dark energy, needs to…
In arXiv:hep-th/0011245, in the context of domain wall backgrounds, it was shown that spontaneous breaking of diffeomorphism invariance results in gravitational Higgs mechanism. Recently in arXiv:0708.3184 't Hooft discussed gravitational Higgs mechanism in the context of obtaining massive gravity directly in four dimensions, and pointed out some subtleties with unitarity. We attribute these subtleties to breaking time-like diffeomorphisms, and discuss gravitational Higgs mechanism with all but time-like diffeomorphisms spontaneously broken. The resulting background is no longer flat but exhib…
Just like the vector gauge bosons in the gauge theories, it is now known that gravitons acquire mass in the process of spontaneous symmetry breaking of diffeomorphisms through the condensation of scalar fields. The point is that we should find the gravitational Higgs mechanism such that it results in massive gravity in a flat Minkowski space-time without non-unitary propagating modes. This is usually achieved by including higher-derivative terms in scalars and tuning the cosmological constant to be a negative value in a proper way. Recently, a similar but different gravitational Higgs mechanis…
In this paper we study the coupling of scalar (Higgs) particles ($ϕ$) with gravitons ($h$) and their possible effects. The general form of the 3-point interaction $ϕ(p) h(1)h(2)$ can be derived using the scaling behavior of the spinor variables under the little group; the resulting vertices exhibit such simplicity, that some simplifications should be hidden in the expressions obtained from the extended scalar action. To investigate this, we study an extended Einstein-Hilbert action that besides the minimal coupling, it also includes terms of the form $ϕR^2$, $ϕR^{μν} R_{μν}$ and $ϕR^{μνρσ} R_{…
We compare the standard Higgs mechanism corresponding to the scalar field, with the dynamical origin of the graviton mass inside the scenario of the dRGT theory of massive gravity. We demonstrate that the effective mass perceived locally by different observers, depends on the way how they define the local time with respect to the preferred notion of time defined by the Stückelberg function $T_0(r,t)$.
New Massive Gravity provides a non-linear extension of the Fierz-Pauli mass for gravitons in 2+1 dimensions. Here we construct a Weyl invariant version of this theory. When the Weyl symmetry is broken, the graviton gets a mass in analogy with the Higgs mechanism. In (anti)-de Sitter backgrounds, the symmetry can be broken spontaneously, but in flat backgrounds radiative corrections, at the two loop level, break the Weyl symmetry a la Coleman-Weinberg mechanism. We also construct the Weyl invariant extensions of some other higher derivative models, such as the Gauss-Bonnet theory (which reduces…
We examine the giant graviton expansions of the Coulomb and Higgs indices for the M2-brane SCFTs to find the closed-form expressions for the indices that encode the spectra of the $1/4$-BPS M5-brane giant gravitons and the $1/3$-BPS orbifold M5-brane giant gravitons. Consequently, we get exact forms of the twisted indices for the 6d $(2,0)$ theories describing a stack of $N$ M5-branes which generalize the unrefined indices. We confirm that they are also beautifully expanded with respect to the indices for the M2-brane giant gravitons which are obtained from the Coulomb and Higgs indices for th…
Graviton fluctuations induce strong non-perturbative infrared renormalization effects for the cosmological constant. The functional renormalization flow drives a positive cosmological constant towards zero, solving the cosmological constant problem without the need to tune parameters. We propose a simple computation of the graviton contribution to the flow of the effective potential for scalar fields. Within variable gravity we find that the potential increases asymptotically at most quadratically with the scalar field. With effective Planck mass proportional to the scalar field, the solutions…
We show that the massless form fields, in $(4+1)$-dimensional non-perturbation theory of emergent gravity, become massive in a perturbative phase without Higgs mechanism. In particular an axionic scalar sourced by a non-perturbative dynamical correction is absorbed by the form fields to describe a massive NS field theory on an emergent gravitational pair of $(3{\bar 3})$-brane. Arguably the novel idea of Higgs mechanism is naturally invoked in an emergent gravity underlying a ${\rm CFT}_6$. Analysis reveals "gravito-weak" and "electro-weak" phases respectively on a vacuum pair in $(4+1)$ and $…
In this paper I describe a collective coordinate approach to the study of giant graviton states and their excitations in various field theories. The method simplifies considerably the understanding of emergent gauge symmetry of these configurations, as well as the calculation of the spectrum of strings stretched between the giant gravitons. There is a limit where these results reproduce the one loop dispersion relation for giant magnons. I also show that this method gives rise to a simple geometric interpretation of a Higgs mechanism for the emergent gauge symmetry which parallels the holograp…
We use the Wilsonian functional Renormalisation Group (RG) to study quantum corrections for the Higgs inflationary action including the effect of gravitons, and analyse the leading-order quantum gravitational corrections to the Higgs' quartic coupling, as well as its non-minimal coupling to gravity and Newton's constant, at the inflationary regime and beyond. We explain how within this framework the effect of Higgs and graviton loops can be sufficiently suppressed during inflation, and we also place a bound on the corresponding value of the infrared RG cut-off scale during inflation. Finally, …
We show that perturbative unitarity for $W_LW_L$ scattering places significant constraints on the Randall-Sundrum theory with two 3-branes, with matter confined to the TeV brane. The exchange of massive 4D Kaluza-Klein gravitons leads to amplitudes growing linearly with the CM energy squared. Summing over KK gravitons up to a scale $\lbar$ and testing unitarity at $\sqrt s=\lbar$, one finds that unitarity is violated for $\lbar$ below the 'naive dimensional analysis' scale, $Λ_{NDA}$. We evaluate $\lbar$ as a function of the curvature ratio $m_0/M_{Planck}$ for the pure gravity theory. We then…
We analyze the structure of scattering amplitudes of the Kaluza-Klein (KK) gravitons and of the KK gravitational Goldstone bosons in the compactified 5d General Relativity (GR). Using a general $R_ξ$ gauge-fixing, we study the geometric Higgs mechanism for the massive spin-2 KK gravitons. We newly propose and prove a Gravitational Equivalence Theorem (GRET) to connect the scattering amplitudes of longitudinal KK gravitons to that of the KK gravitational Goldstone bosons, which formulates the geometric gravitational Higgs mechanism at the scattering $S$-matrix level. We demonstrate that the GRE…
In this paper we discuss massive gravity in de Sitter space via gravitational Higgs mechanism, which provides a nonlinear definition thereof. The Higgs scalars are described by a nonlinear sigma model, which includes higher derivative terms required to obtain the Fierz-Pauli mass term. Using the aforesaid non-perturbative definition, we address appearance of an enhanced local symmetry and a null norm state in the linearized massive gravity in de Sitter space at the special value of the graviton mass to the Hubble parameter ratio. By studying full non-perturbative equations of motion, we argue …
We consider the massless limit of Higgs gravity, where the graviton becomes massive when the scalar fields acquire expectation values. We determine the Vainshtein scale and prove that massive gravity smoothly goes to General Relativity below this scale. We find that the Vainshtein scale depends on the particular action of scalar fields used to give mass to the graviton.
In a realistic theory with large extra dimensions and TeV scale gravity, there are often other particles living in the extra dimensions in addition to gravitons. A well motivated candidate is the flavon in a flavor theory which explains the smallness of the fermion masses by the large volume of the extra dimensions. The flavon interactions involve the Higgs field and can therefore give rise to new mechanisms of Higgs boson production. We study these new Higgs signals, including both real flavon emission and virtual flavon exchange. They could provide powerful probes of the string scale which a…
Einstein-Strauss Hermitian gravity was recently formulated as a gauge theory where the tangent group is taken to be the pseudo-unitary group instead of the orthogonal group. A Higgs mechanism for massive gravity was also formulated. We generalize this construction to obtain massive Hermitian gravity with the use of a complex Higgs multiplet. We show that both the graviton and antisymmetric tensor acquire the same mass. At the linearized level, the theory is ghost free around Minkowski background and describes a massive graviton with five degrees of freedom and an antisymmetric field with three…
We consider Einstein gravity coupled to a CFT made of a single free conformal scalar in 4-d Anti de Sitter space. This simple case is rich enough to explain an unexpected gravitational Higgs phenomenon that has no flat-space counterpart, yet simple enough that many calculations can be carried on exactly. Specifically, in this paper we compute the graviton self energy due to matter, and we exhibit its spectral representation. This enables us to find the spin-2 bound-state content of the system.
We study the structure of scattering amplitudes of the Kaluza-Klein (KK) gravitons and of the gravitational KK Goldstone bosons in the compactified 5d General Relativity (GR). We analyze the geometric "Higgs" mechanism for mass-generation of KK gravitons under compactification with a general $R_ξ$ gauge-fixing, which is free from the vDVZ discontinuity. Then, we formulate the Gravitational Equivalence Theorem (GRET) to connect the longitudinal KK graviton amplitudes to the KK Goldstone amplitudes, which is a manifestation of the geometric Higgs mechanism at $S$-matrix level. We directly comput…
We show the generic existence of metastable massive gravitons in the four-dimensional core of self-gravitating hypermonopoles in any number of infinite-volume extra-dimensions. Confinement is observed for Higgs and gauge bosons couplings of the order unity. Provided these resonances are light enough, they realise the Dvali-Gabadadze-Porrati mechanism by inducing a four-dimensional gravity law on some intermediate length scales. The effective four-dimensional Planck mass is shown to be proportional to a negative power of the graviton mass. As a result, requiring gravity to be four-dimensional o…
We discuss D-dimensional scalar and electromagnetic fields interacting with a quantized metric. The gravitons depend solely on twodimensional coordinates. We consider a conformal field theory model for the metric tensor. We show that an interaction with gravity improves the short distance behaviour. As a result there is no charge renormalization in the fourdimensional Higgs model.
Tokai University(东海大学);Fudan University(复旦大学);Shanghai Institute for Mathematics and Interdisciplinary Sciences(上海数学与交叉学科研究院);Southeast University(东南大学)
In gravitational Higgs mechanism graviton components acquire mass via spontaneous diffeomorphism breaking by scalar vacuum expectation values. We point out that in the massless limit the resulting theory is not Einstein-Hilbert gravity (EHG) but constrained gravity (CG). Consequently, massive solutions in the massless limit must be compared to those in CG (as opposed to EHG). We discuss spherically symmetric solutions in this context. The Schwarzschild solution in EHG can be coordinate-transformed such that it is also a solution in CG. The resulting solutions are non-perturbative in the asympt…
We present a theory of ghost-free massive gravity where the mass of the graviton is generated through the Brout-Englert-Higgs (BEH) mechanism and one of the four scalar fields used is that of mimetic gravity. The mass term is not of the Fierz-Pauli type and the constraint eliminates the Boulware-Deser ghost which is absent to all orders. We perform a detailed analysis using the methods of cosmological perturbation theory and consider quantum fluctuations of the degrees of freedom of massive graviton and mimetic matter. It is shown that for three of the degrees of freedom of the graviton of mas…
We revisit an old idea that gravity can be unified with Yang-Mills theory by enlarging the gauge group of gravity formulated as gauge theory. Our starting point is an action that describes a generally covariant gauge theory for a group G. The Minkowski background breaks the gauge group by selecting in it a preferred gravitational SU(2) subgroup. We expand the action around this background and find the spectrum of linearized theory to consist of the usual gravitons plus Yang-Mills fields charged under the centralizer of the SU(2) in G. In addition, there is a set of Higgs fields that are charge…
In the present paper, we study the inflationary phenomenology of a $k$-inflation corrected Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet theory. Non-canonical kinetic terms are known for producing Jean instabilities or superluminal sound wave velocities in the aforementioned era, but we demonstrate in this work that by adding Gauss-Bonnet string corrections and assuming that the non-canonical kinetic term $ωX^γ$ is in quadratic, one can obtain a ghost free description. Demanding compatibility with the recent GW170817 event forces one to accept that the relation $\ddotξ=H\dotξ$ for the scalar coupling function $ξ(ϕ)$.…
There exist consistent low energy effective field theories describing gravity in the Higgs phase that allow the coexistence of massive gravitons and the conventional 1/r potential of gravity. In an effort to constrain the value of the graviton mass in these theories, we study the tensor contribution to the CMB temperature anisotropy and polarization spectra in the presence of a non-vanishing graviton mass. We find that the observation of a B-mode signal consistent with the spectrum predicted by inflationary models would provide the strongest limit yet on the mass of an elementary particle -- a…
We explore the possibility that the fundamental theory of nature does not contain any scale. This implies a renormalizable quantum gravity theory where the graviton kinetic term has 4 derivatives, and can be reinterpreted as gravity minus an anti-graviton. We compute the super-Planckian RGE of adimensional gravity coupled to a generic matter sector. The Planck scale and a flat space can arise dynamically at quantum level provided that a quartic scalar coupling and its $β$ function vanish at the Planck scale. This is how the Higgs boson behaves for $M_h\approx 125$ GeV at $M_t\approx 171$ GeV. …
We show that standard Einstein gravity coupled to a free conformal field theory (CFT) in Anti de Sitter space can undergo a Higgs phenomenon whereby the graviton acquires a nonzero mass (and three extra polarizations). We show that the essential ingredients of this mechanism are the discreteness of the energy spectrum in AdS space, and unusual boundary conditions on the elementary fields of the CFT. These boundary conditions can be interpreted as implying the existence of a 3-d defect CFT living at the boundary of the AdS space. Our free-field computation sheds light on the essential, model-in…
We study the fixed point structure of the Higgs-Yukawa model, with its scalar being non-minimally coupled to the asymptotically safe gravity, using the functional renormalization group. We have obtained the renormalization group equations for the cosmological and Newton constants, the scalar mass-squared and quartic coupling constant, and the Yukawa and non-minimal coupling constants, taking into account all the scalar, fermion, and graviton loops. We find that switching on the fermionic quantum fluctuations makes the non-minimal coupling constant irrelevant around the Gaussian-matter fixed po…
We discuss a possible scenario to solve the hierarchy problem, in which 4-dimensional bosonic fields with all possible integer spins, graviton, gauge boson and Higgs are unified in a framework of a gravity theory with extra dimensions. The Higgs is identified with the extra space component of the metric tensor. One-loop quantum effect on the Higgs mass-squared is explicitly calculated in a five dimensional gravity theory compactified on $S^1$. We obtain a finite calculable Higgs mass-squared without suffering from quadratic divergence, by virtue of general coordinate transformation invariance,…
We construct effective field theories in which gravity is modified via spontaneous breaking of local Lorentz invariance. This is a gravitational analogue of the Higgs mechanism. These theories possess additional graviton modes and modified dispersion relations. They are manifestly well-behaved in the UV and free of discontinuities of the van Dam-Veltman-Zakharov type, ensuring compatibility with standard tests of gravity. They may have important phenomenological effects on large distance scales, offering an alternative to dark energy. For the case in which the symmetry is broken by a vector fi…
This paper belongs to the series devoted to the calculation of particle masses in the framework of p-adic conformal field theory limit of Topological GeometroDynamics. In paper II the general formulation of p-adic Higgs mechanism was given. In this paper the calculation of the fermionic and bosonic masses is carried out. The calculation of the masses necessitates the evaluation of dege- neracies for states as a function of conformal weight in certain tensor product of Super Virasoro algebras. The masses are very sen- sitive to the degeneracy ratios: Planck mass results unless the ratio for the…
(N=2)-superspace without torsion is described, which is equivalent to an 8-space with a discrete internal subspace. A number and a character of ties determine now an internal symmetry group, while in the supersymmetrical models this one is determined by an extension degree N. Such a model can be constructed for no less than 4 generations of the two-component fundamental fermions. Analogues of the Higgs fields appear in the model naturally after transition to the Grassmannian extra coordinates. The connection between discrete and continues internal symmetries of the model is discussed. If one c…
We present a new point of view on the quantization of the massive gravitational field, namely we use exclusively the quantum framework of the second quantization. The Hilbert space of the many-gravitons system is a Fock space ${\cal F}^{+}({\sf H}_{\rm graviton})$ where the one-particle Hilbert space ${\sf H}_{graviton}$ carries the direct sum of two unitary irreducible representations of the Poincaré group corresponding to two particles of mass $m > 0$ and spins 2 and 0, respectively. This Hilbert space is canonically isomorphic to a space of the type $Ker(Q)/Im(Q)$ where $Q$ is a gauge charg…
We discuss the gravitational Higgs mechanism in domain wall background solutions that arise in the theory of 5-dimensional Einstein-Hilbert gravity coupled to a scalar field with a non-trivial potential. The scalar fluctuations in such backgrounds can be completely gauged away, and so can be the graviphoton fluctuations. On the other hand, we show that the graviscalar fluctuations do not have normalizable modes. As to the 4-dimensional graviton fluctuations, in the case where the volume of the transverse dimension is finite the massive modes are plane-wave normalizable, while the zero mode is …
The self-interactions of the conformal mode of the graviton are controlled, in dimensionless gravity theories (agravity), by a coupling $f_0$ that is not asymptotically free. We show that, nevertheless, agravity can be a complete theory valid up to infinite energy. When $f_0$ grows to large values, the conformal mode of the graviton decouples from the rest of the theory and does not hit any Landau pole provided that scalars are asymptotically conformally coupled and all other couplings approach fixed points. Then, agravity can flow to conformal gravity at infinite energy. We identify scenarios…
Motivated by ideas obtained from both ghost condensation and gravitational Higgs mechanism, we attempt to find classical solutions in the unitary gauge in general ghost condensation models. It is shown that depending on the form of scalar fields in an action, there are three kinds of exact solutions, which are (anti-) de Sitter space-time, polynomially expanding universes and flat Minkowski space-time. We briefly comment on gravitational Higgs mechanism in these models where we have massive gravitons of 5 degrees of freedom and 1 unitary scalar field (Nambu-Goldstone boson) after spontaneous s…
We discuss effective interactions among brane matter induced by modifications of higher dimensional Einstein gravity via the replacement of Einstein-Hilbert term with a generic function f(R) of the curvature scalar R. After deriving the graviton propagator, we analyze impact of virtual graviton exchanges on particle interactions, and conclude that f(R) gravity effects are best probed by high-energy processes involving massive gauge bosons, heavy fermions or the Higgs boson. We perform a comparative analysis of the predictions of f(R) gravity and of Arkani-Hamed-Dvali-Dimopoulos (ADD) scenario,…
A quadratic Leibniz algebra $(\mathbb{V},[ \cdot, \cdot ],κ)$ gives rise to a canonical Yang-Mills type functional $S$ over every space-time manifold. The gauge fields consist of 1-forms $A$ taking values in $\mathbb{V}$ and 2-forms $B$ with values in the subspace $\mathbb{W} \subset \mathbb{V}$ generated by the symmetric part of the bracket. If the Leibniz bracket is anti-symmetric, the quadratic Leibniz algebra reduces to a quadratic Lie algebra, $B\equiv 0$, and $S$ becomes identical to the usual Yang-Mills action functional. We describe this gauge theory for a general quadratic Leibniz alg…
We embed the flipped SU(5) models into the SO(10) models. After the SO(10) gauge symmetry is broken down to the flipped SU(5) \times U(1)_X gauge symmetry, we can split the five/one-plets and ten-plets in the spinor \mathbf{16} and \mathbf{\bar{16}} Higgs fields via the stable sliding singlet mechanism. As in the flipped SU(5) models, these ten-plet Higgs fields can break the flipped SU(5) gauge symmetry down to the Standard Model gauge symmetry. The doublet-triplet splitting problem can be solved naturally by the missing partner mechanism, and the Higgsino-exchange mediated proton decay can b…